Mrs. Annie Mae’s Rooster

In another lifetime, I was a runner.  I really was.  I was not a fast runner.  I was not the slowest runner.  I was what is known in the running community as a “mid-packer”.  In other words, there were many ahead of me and a few behind me.  For about 10 years, I ran a lot of miles and I loved it.

One reason I was excited about starting my own business was that I would have flexibility to run whenever I chose to.  Yeah, that’s what I told myself.  But, as it turned out, as a small businessman who serves the public, I had less time to run, less control over my schedule and more excuses not to run.

During this time, I occasionally wrote a running column for the local paper.  This was a few years before Facebook, Twitter, blogs and all the other newfangled ways we can express ourselves publicly.  Print media was the only outlet for writing the kinds of things I enjoy writing, and Wayne Smith and Greg Dewalt, sports editors at the local newspaper were kind enough to let me contribute.  I wrote more about the experiences of running and avoided training strategies, programs, and the like, the reason being that everyone had different ideas, and most knew more than I did.  So, I stuck to the aesthetics of the sport that I loved and continue to love.  Maybe in the future, I can share some of those with you.

Nowadays when someone asks if I still run, I reply “I’m slowly getting back into it.”  I have been saying that now for several years.  But I’m not giving up and who knows?  This may be the year that good intentions become reality.  It’s certainly on my list of goals for this year.

In those days, I ran in the early morning as often as I could.  The world is different before everyone awakes and automobiles and background noise drown out the sound of life going on around us.  I’ve been going to the gym early for the past few weeks, and notice that the quiet stillness of predawn is still available to us, if we’re willing to step into it.  But, back to the running days.  I saw many things and heard many sounds that I soon became used to.  The birds seem to sing louder in the early morning hours.  The squirrels seem to be hyper and busy, while the cows seem to be moving slowly like some do before that first cup of coffee.  And the roosters crow.  The roosters seem to claim the role of sounding a morning reveille for all who can hear.  I assume they crow even when no one can hear them.  But I really can’t say for sure.

But one morning, I turned the tables on a fine feathered friend.  I embarrassed him and I’m pretty sure I left him speechless, or crowless.  Near my house and on my running route lived a wonderful elderly couple named James and Annie Mae Peck.  We attended church together and I have only fond memories of them.  Their son later built his home on the same family land only where their home once stood.  Mr. and Mrs. Peck had dogs, chickens, and, if I recall, some cattle as well.  Their house was surrounded by cornfields.  All in all, it was a perfect and pastoral setting.  Of course the barking of the dogs when we ran by did disturb that setting slightly, but I digress.

They also had a rooster.  A loud rooster.  Some might call it an obnoxious rooster, but I won’t go that far.  That rooster crowed loud and true every morning before dawn.  And as my friend Terry and I ran those roads near their house, we could hear that rooster blaring out his announcement of a new morning.  On those days I saw him, I’m pretty sure he stuck out his chest and let go with all he had.  That’s what roosters do and this one was loud and proud.  Except one day he wasn’t.   And that brings me to the point of this blog.  I woke that rooster one morning.  I’m not boasting and as Walt Whitman is purported to have said, “If you done it, it ain’t bragging”.  Or maybe it was Dizzy Dean who said that.  Well somebody said it, or I couldn’t have stolen it.

Pleased with myself, I celebrated my accomplishment by going home and writing a poem to memorialize it.  Now, I’m not a poet.  I realize that.  My poetry attempts consist of stringing rhyming phrases in iambic pentameter, or something like that.  My friend Jim Hatcher is a poet.  If you want to read good poems, then find some of his on Facebook or pick up a copy of his book.  But I do think that my poem would make for a sub-par country music song, so there’s that.  At any rate, I’m doing something I have never done before.  I am sharing it with an audience.  So, please read it and I hope it brings a smile.

There.  Now you have it.  I realize that no awards for poetic excellence are forthcoming from the Poetry Society of America, but don’t give up on us.  If today’s blog wasn’t to your liking, please visit again in a couple of weeks.  I’ll try to write something worth crowing about.